Summary: Today we celebrate the birthday of the piano builder and composer Ignaz Joseph Pleyel, who was born in Ruppertsthal, Austria on June 18, 1757: 261 years ago today.<br> It’s entirely understandable if you’ve never heard of Pleyel or his music, because his music – despite being extremely attractive and technically sound – has fallen into almost total obscurity. But if one had to pick a single, “most popular composer” in the years between 1800 and 1820, it would be Pleyel: more popular than Haydn, than Mozart, and yes, most certainly more popular that that curmudgeon Beethoven.<br> A review published in 1791 in the Morning Herald of London states that Pleyel:<br> “is becoming even more popular than his master [Haydn], as his works are characterized less by the intricacies of science.”<br> (The reviewer is saying that because Pleyel’s music was easier to play and less complicated – less “scientific” – than Haydn’s, Pleyel was attracting a wider popular base than Haydn.)<br> In Brussels, the contemporary and most influential music critic, musicologist, composer, and teacher François-Joseph Fétis outright marveled at Pleyel’s popularity, writing:<br> “What composer ever created more of a craze than Pleyel? Who enjoyed a more universal reputation or a more absolute domination of the field of instrumental music? Over more than twenty years, there was no amateur or professional musician who did not delight in his genius.”<br> The citizens of the town (and island) of Nantucket, Massachusetts – which was then a small whaling port – established a “Pleyel Society” in 1822. According to the newspaper article announcing the creation society, it was created “to chasten the tastes of auditors”, meaning “to improve the tastes of listeners.”<br> Ignaz Pleyel’s enormous popularity was matched by his enormous compositional output; among many other works, he composed 41 symphonies, 70 string quartets, 62 piano trios, 69 duos, 17 concerti, and 10 quintets; he composed operas, masses, overtures, hymns, and a tremendous number of works for piano solo. What makes the size of this output all the more impressive – scary, even – is that Pleyel composed the great bulk of it in just eight years: between 1787-95, between the ages of 30 and 38.<br> Quite a busy compositional bee, Herr Pleyel. But all for naught if posterity is to be the judge. So why should he be remembered here on Music History Monday beyond being a cautionary tale of what happens when you compose too much facile, easy-to-play music all too quickly?<br> Because Pleyel was also a businessman: a music publisher and the founder of a piano building company called – not surprisingly – Pleyel et Cie (“Pleyel and Company”). It was as a businessman that Ignaz Pleyel affected the course of Western music.<br> In 1795, at the age of 38, Pleyel settled permanently in Paris. He opened a music shop and started a music publishing business. In its 39 years of existence, Chez Pleyel (“House of Pleyel”) published over 4000 works, including works by Haydn, Clementi, Beethoven, and Rossini. In 1802, Chez Pleyel revolutionized the music publishing industry by issuing the first miniature scores. Beginning with Haydn’s symphonies and string quartets, Pleyel printed miniature scores of chamber works by Beethoven and others; the last such miniature score was issued in 1830, a year before Pleyel’s death in 1831.<br> But most importantly was Pleyel’s founding of his piano company Pleyel et Cie in Paris in 1807. Improving on English technology, the company came out with a line of so-called “cottage pianos” or “pianinos”: small, vertically strung upright pianos, the first to be manufactured and sold in France.<br> In 1815, Ignaz Pleyel’s son Camille joined the firm, setting the stage for the technological breakthrough in the 1820s that would establish forever Pleyel’s place in music history.<br> According to the piano historian Edwin Goode, the 1820s saw:<br>
